More Happy Than Not

Without having forgotten I said it before, I keep repeating, “I love you in a non-weird way too. I love you in a non-weird way too. I love you in a non-weird way too . . .”

17

THE BOY ON THE ROOFTOP

My senior citizen illness keeps getting the best of me.

I’m going to lose my job at Good Food’s. If I become a bus driver, I’ll forget my route. If I become a teacher, I’ll forget my students’ names and lesson plans. If I’m a banker, I’ll have no money in my safe after I keep handing over cash. If I’m in the army, I’ll forget how to use the gun and get all the wrong people killed.

The only thing I’ll be good for is being a failed lab rat.

I doubt I’ll be able to concentrate enough to finish my comic, but I’ve made peace with that. It’s okay how some stories leave off without an ending. Life doesn’t always deliver the one you would expect.

I’ll never be in a relationship again. If I met someone new only to forget him later, it’s not fair.

So now there’s only one apology left to make.

It takes some convincing, but I do it. I get Eric to back off and let me head over to Thomas’s house by myself.

Once Thomas knows about my condition there’s no way he’ll let me wander the streets alone. I just don’t want to rush my time with him.

Now I’m slowly climbing up the fire escape. I’m getting used to these jump-cuts in my life. I don’t scramble up the steps with the thrill I had all summer, but with the fear of someone marching to his death. When I reach his window, the curtains are drawn. But I can still see a sliver of Thomas leaning over his table and writing. I bet he’s journaling.

I knock on the pane and he jumps.

And then, like Genevieve, he blinks a few times, fast. His eyes fill with tears. I shake my head.

“Meet me on the roof,” I tell him.

He nods.

I head on up and just wait, reminding myself again and again what I’m doing and why I’m here. I check out the streetlamps turning on below, glowing orange as evening kicks in, and then up at the few stars hanging out in the sky. I see him step off the fire escape, and all of a sudden he’s sitting on the ledge.

I’m trembling a little bit. This is another forever moment. “So something crazy is happening,” I tell him. I lie down on the ground. The stars don’t shift, and I’m very appreciative. “There’s been a trauma in the part of my brain where you store your memories. It’s only partial right now, but my doctor thinks there’s a chance it’ll take full effect at some point or another. If I don’t remember something you say, I’m sorry.”

Thomas is now down beside me. For a while we don’t say anything else. Or maybe we have an entire conversation I don’t remember.

What I have is this:

He asks, “Do you think there’s a chance you were someone really awful in a past life? Like a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away you were Darth Vader? I feel like you can’t catch a break.”

I laugh and quickly repeat it in my head several times.

“Sure feels that way,” I say. “I honestly don’t want to live anymore, Thomas. I think it could be freeing to just get up and fly off this rooftop . . .”

“If you love me, Stretch, you won’t leave me with the memory of you jumping off this roof now, or ever. Okay? If there’s one thing I’m begging you to remember from this conversation, it’s that promise.”

“Okay, but in exchange you have to promise to never die. I can’t stand the pain of someone telling me every day that you’re dead. You need to always be alive and happy, okay?”

He laughs through his tears. “You got it, Stretch. Immortality. No problem.”

“And happy too,” I say.

He props his knees up and cracks his knuckles. “Okay. I need to come clean about something. I suspected you liked me after you came out with Side A. You understand me in a way a lot of other people don’t. If I’m being one hundred percent honest, I think our friendship even confused me a little, but I’m also one hundred percent sure that I’m still straight because I would’ve been chasing after you if I wasn’t.”

I try to say something, but I can’t.

“We can’t ever be together,” he finished. “But I always want to know you, even if we’re in the same room and you’re just saying hi to me over and over again, I’ll be perfectly happy. I’ll always want to be sitting across from you.”